Beware of dodgy preference deals
Dont let your preferences elect climate change deniers!
Victoria is the only state that still uses the discredited 'one above the line' blackbox voting. In this system, the party or group that gets your first preference allocates all your other preferences. You can end up preferencing climate change deniers without even knowing that this is happening. Even if you number several groups above the line (mistakenly using the federal Senate voting system) your identified preferences will be ignored and the preferencing choices of your first preference will prevail.
It seems that Labor has retained this system because they prefer to negotiate with cross-benchers other than the Greens. Last state election, preference whisper, Glen Druery worked with eight of the 11 crossbenchers who were elected and the Greens had their upper house representation cut from five to one. The only three crossbenchers elected without being part of the Druery preference-swap were one each from the Greens, Reason and Animal Justice.
Liberal Democrat David Limbirck won a seat with 0.84% of the first preference vote having received strong preference flows from Druery-linked micro-parties. Sustainable Australia’s Clifford Hayes defeated Greens MP Sue Pennicuik even though she received 13% of first preference votes and he won only 1.32%. And another winner was Transport Matters Party’s Rod Barton, who was elected on only 0.6% of the vote.